A student uses a Chromebook at Centaurus High School in Lafayette in August 2017. Some parents want the Boulder Valley School District to limit what elementary students can access online. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

The Boulder Valley school board is looking at buying classroom management software to help teachers monitor screen use and creating a policy on cellphone use in schools.

The board tackled how to manage technology issues at its Tuesday work session, including discussions on possible policy changes around technology use and ongoing efforts around web filters and cybersecurity.

"We're trying to strike that balance between more aggressive filtering and a wide-open internet," said Andrew Moore, Boulder Valley's chief information officer.

A group of parents spent the past year lobbying the district to tighten its controls on what students can access, along with starting a BVSD Internet Safety Facebook page as part of its campaign.

The district last week also received five formal parent complaints regarding technology use in schools.

"Parents just want more input into some of these decisions the district is making," said school board member Shelly Benford, who has been critical of the district's technology policies and use. "I feel like the main issue here is that parental control is being taken away."

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The work session didn't include public comment, but was attended by parents concerned about internet safety issues who clapped, booed and called out their displeasure during the discussion.

Based on parent complaints, Boulder Valley recently blocked all gaming sites at elementary schools while "whitelisting" specific educational games used by teachers.

Social media sites are blocked at the elementary level, YouTube is available only in educational safe search mode and the district uses a $200,000-a-year website filter that blocks sites in 25 categories, from adult content to gambling.

Some parents are asking the district to go further and block social media at middle schools, noting those sites generally require users to be 13 or older.

Moore argued that blocking social media sites at middle school would push more students to access them on their phones with hot spots instead of through district-monitored internet — drawing boos from the crowd.

"Much of this is behavioral issues," he said. "Digital citizenship is so important."

School board members asked for more information about the social media issue at middle schools, with board President Tina Marquis saying many of the technology issues seem to be at middle school.

She asked the district to consider a cellphone policy, saying she doesn't think they generally should be allowed in classrooms. Now, individual schools set rules on cellphone use.

The district's recommended policy changes include a ban on students and staff members using hot spots, which allows them to bypass filters, and stronger language around requiring reporting harmful sites that get through the filters.

Recommendations around filtering and cybersecurity include investing in digital citizenship training for teachers, hiring a second technology security-focused employee and buying classroom management software to help teachers monitor screen use.

The board agreed to consider the last two items as part of approving next school year's budget.

"We believe this is an important enough issue to our community that those two investments would be wise," Interim Superintendent Cindy Stevenson said.

District staff members also recommended that school board members attend the district's technology advisory committee meetings, and that the committee take suggestions for topics to discuss.

Unanswered questions included if the district should restrict the Google hangouts chat feature to staff members only, blocking students.

Among the parents who filed formal complaints is Crest View Elementary parent Anna Segur, who started the internet safety Facebook page with another Boulder Valley parent.

She noted that she first raised concerns in May of last year, when her then-third-grade son reported that he and his friends were playing violent video games in class.

In March, she met with the school principal and used her son's Chromebook to demonstrate content available to students, including how to make recreational drugs, searching for obscene Spanish language and image content, as well as violent and sexual games, according to her complaint.

Segur said many other parents have shared similar experiences, but have had their worries deflected or ignored.

Her complaint listed 26 requests, which include creating an independent working group to conduct meaningful research on best practices in technology use in school districts and make recommendations.

She also wants the district to install different web and email filtering software to block sites with chat features and allow parents access to a log of their children's Chromebook activity while at school.

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